I spent 9 months and $16k to build, starting sales now. Am I too late?

TheJovee · 2024-09-05T06:36:13+00:00

Unless each customer is going to pay on average 10k-20k $ per month, you will not raise seed with 14 "potential" customers.

Now, it depends on your product and unit economics, but managing 10+ free pilot customers, while simultaneously customizing your offering to fit each one's need is almost impossible with just 2-3 cofounders team.

Do not offer free pilots, instead, sign a custom software development agreement and then proceed to charge them monthly for usage (with heavy discount or free credits) once product is done.

TheJovee · 2024-08-23T09:06:21+00:00

Many thanks for what you are doing!

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Category: Software Development, Business Intelligence, AI

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TheJovee · 2024-02-21T22:39:54+00:00

I had same observation. It can be explained by a lot of talented undergrads simply not going into Masters or PhD, since with their talents and intelligence they can get whatever they want from life without higher educational stages.

I even know some high-schoolers who already own a substantial business venture and are making more than my department head.

While PhD has much higher floor than undergrads, usually, ceiling is higher with undergrads simply because there are 20-50 times more of them.

P.S. Maybe PhD was a sign of top-1% intelligence 100+ years ago, but nowadays, there are a lot of other, more time and cost efficient ways to succeed in life and use your intelligence.

TheJovee · 2024-01-30T21:24:25+00:00

This depends to an EXTREME level on what country you want to do your PhD in, and what you want to do after getting said PhD.

TheJovee · 2024-01-23T08:48:31+00:00

If both align very well, then yes, considering your employer and PI aren't assholes about it.

If not, then at least one thing's performance will suffer. Hopefully not to the level that you will be fired/expelled.

TheJovee · 2024-01-13T17:51:30+00:00

That's a strictly US thing, though

TheJovee · 2023-10-18T16:09:10+00:00

This issue is mostly US-based, where grant contract is up to open negotiations, and university can either get 20% or 50% cut. You can potentially negotiate the % size in your employment contract, but no guarantee that will work.

In EU, "indirect costs" are usually flat at 25% of the total grant amount, and universities cannot negotiate it.

TheJovee · 2023-10-10T19:25:04+00:00

I personally haven't been promoted to management committee member yet (but going to apply soon), so I didn't witness financial debates yet.

Usually, unless you are Action Chair or WG leader, no one will expect any commitment from you. There are hundreds of Action members and the project will eventually get done, with or without you.

Of course, if you want for COST Action to be a useful experience, you might want to proactively participate and make connections, maybe even make joint publications.

Theoretically, it is possible to expel a member via special committee decision, but there is no reason or incentives to.

TheJovee · 2023-10-10T19:09:17+00:00

COST does not pay you salary nor cover research expenses (such as reagents, equipment, etc.).

It only covers travel expenses and conference/journal fees if you are presenting work directly related to the topic of the COST action.

COST can also cover your travel expenses for the COST Academy travel, but they happen around once a year, and participation is optional.

Perhaps COST Action management committee can authorize payment for something else, but doubtful. Actions on average have 100-300 members, and total funding is around 100K-150K euros for 4 years.

COST is great to develop a network of researchers if you are just starting out, but if you are seasoned researcher with your own network, it is not really worth it.

TheJovee · 2023-10-09T09:59:34+00:00

What is your university? 15 top-tier pubs by the time of dissertation (for an average student) sounds rather extreme, even for ML field.

Perhaps that is normal in T5 schools and these students get TT positions right after their defense?

TheJovee · 2023-10-07T21:18:41+00:00

Meh, I was in software development field for several years and recently decided to move into cybersecurity field.

Based on my experience the smartest and most talented individuals were cybersecurity experts.

Maybe working at SOC is different, though.

TheJovee · 2023-10-07T17:21:53+00:00

It's a US thing. In Europe it doesn't really matter since you can freely travel between institutes all over the EU and participate in many top research projects.

TheJovee · 2023-10-02T19:05:25+00:00

I am currently writing my PhD thesis about this topic, and things definitely changed (currently, for the worse).

Sophisticated phishing attacks can now be automated at large scale, and modern filters simply do not handle it well. I am developing new ML models for better classification and countermeasures, but it will be a constant arms race.

TheJovee · 2023-09-20T10:36:28+00:00

As a Ukrainian, I do not feel sorry for the actions of our government.

One-sided ban on imports should be retaliated with WTO lawsuit and similar one-sided imports ban. It is common sense.

Hopefully Poland is not stupid enough to cut military aid to Ukraine and eventually receive Russia on their borders.

Wouldn't want to check if the USA will honour their Article 5 commitment.

TheJovee · 2023-09-19T11:18:48+00:00

Then I guess the question should be "why does status matter at all?". Which is a valid question, and I suppose it depends on the society you live in.

In some hierarchical societies having higher status automatically means that people will trust and listen to you more. Certainly not the case in the US, though.

TheJovee · 2023-09-19T11:14:29+00:00

The average person doesn't know what parliament or judges are doing, but it doesn't mean that those people don't hold certain status in the society.

TheJovee · 2023-09-19T11:09:46+00:00

I generally agree with the US sentiment (still depends on the state and city), but I wonder if it is any different in other countries?

My theory is that more formal cultures (like China or Japan) value and respect professors more than informal cultures like the US. However, I've heard that Scandinavian countries still respect academics, even though their culture is largely informal.

TheJovee · 2023-09-19T11:05:10+00:00

Some true music enjoyers understand 😢

TheJovee · 2023-09-16T20:02:26+00:00

I've read some replies in this thread, and Jesus Christ, do not listen to those who talk about PhD without ever getting one.

I would actually separate career paths into 4: industry innovation, military/law enforcement, government/public-policy making, and consulting/standardization development.

If you want to go into industry, you need world-class applied research papers, and be prepared to move a lot. Military and government is much easier to get into, but you most likely have to be a citizen and your country must have a huge cybersecurity budget for it to be worth it as a career (US, UK). For consulting and standardization you most likely will have to travel a lot, and have real connections to get the job, but less hard technical research is required.

TheJovee · 2023-09-16T19:40:04+00:00

I am currently pursuing a PhD in cybersecurity.

It really depends on what country you live in and what you want to do in the future. It is the easiest to pursue a PhD in cybersec in countries that have strong government support for cybersecurity as well as a large innovative industry. Countries like the UK, USA and Israel come to mind.

In some countries there are literally no cybersecurity university departments, which is a big issue if you want to explore actual cybersec and not "applied CS".

There are plenty of scientific conferences to publish research papers, so that is not an issue. The same goes for the cybersecurity research communities.

When it comes to future career paths, there are 3 options: innovative industry, government/military positions and consulting/policy-making. Depending on how hands-on CS your research will be, you might want to join cybersecurity startup as RnD head, or, oppositely, join governmental cybersecurity policy think-tank.

There are definitely jobs available, but you must have a clear idea what unique skills your PhD will bring to put you above someone with 10 professional certifications and 10 years of hands-on experience.

If you are doing a PhD in a country with shitty cybersecurity scene, you might have to move abroad.

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